Dover council meets privately to discuss Joyal's evaluation

Friday

Sep 21, 2012 at 3:15 AM

By MICHELLE KINGSTONmkingston@fosters.com

DOVER — The results of the evaluation of City Manager Michael Joyal in a nonpublic session Wednesday night have not been released.

The City Council met to conduct an evaluation of Joyal privately in his office. Mayor Dean Trefethen said it lasted approximately three hours. All councilors were present, except for Councilor Michael Crago, who could not make the meeting.

Trefethen said councilors discussed their written comments and expanded on what they wrote. The questions and score sheets focused on how Joyal monitors the budget, reports on financial concerns, has upgraded the broadcast capabilities of council chambers in City Hall, continues to communicate with the community and explore new methods to increase public participation in local governance and keeps the council informed regarding any and all community problems and actions that need to be taken.

Other expectations on comment and score sheets included responding to citizen concerns in a timely manner, attending workshops and other educational opportunities for ongoing professional development, researching areas within the municipality and other government agencies where cost efficiencies can occur, and pursuing the implementation of automated teller machines in various municipal buildings and the availability of using a credit card to pay for municipal transactions.

The council also talked about the city manager's contract and pay level and came to a consensus, according to Trefethen.

Trefethen said there was a lot of back and forth discussion throughout the meeting, with some disagreement on what councilors were saying. Before the meeting ended, Trefethen told the councilors they would have until the end of business on Thursday to edit their comments to give them the opportunity to reflect on what was discussed in the meeting. If they felt differently after talking with other councilors or hearing other responses, this gives them the opportunity to change their answers to more accurately reflect how they feel.

The meeting minutes were voted to not be sealed and will be available by Friday, according to Trefethen.

The results and scores will be compiled into an average score for the manager. Last year, Joyal received an averaged score of 3.73 out of a possible 5 points. The council decided to increase his salary by $5,200 because of his satisfactory score.